Turkey continued its regional diplomacy, following the historic visit by Russian President Medvedev to Ankara. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan paid back-to-back trips to Greece, Iran and Azerbaijan, which underscored Turkey’s rising activism in its neighborhood, as well as highlighting divergence with the United States. READ MORE

Yerevan’s call to halt ratification of an accord on normalizing ties has Turkey evaluating the possible legal and political repercussions, and prompted the country’s leader to reiterate his commitment to the normalization process. READ MORE

OSCE should play a bigger role in the South Caucasus in working toward peaceful settlement of protracted conflicts and democratic processes in the region. This was the consensus during the meetings in Baku, Yerevan, and Tbilisi, as the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Kazakhstan’s Secretary of State and Foreign Minister Kanat Saudabayev, visited the three capitals on his first visit to a region with the organization’s field presence on February 15-17. READ MORE

After several delays, the long-awaited new Russian military doctrine was finally approved by President Dmitry Medvedev on February 5. The document did not include the rumored lowering of the nuclear threshold, despite recent public comments on the issue to the contrary made by the Secretary and Deputy Secretary respectively of the Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev and Yuri Baluyevskiy. READ MORE